Tag Archives: Supping with the Puritans

Matthew 19:3-6

NASB

3 Some Pharisees came to Jesus, testing Him and asking, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all?”4 And He answered and said,“Have you not read that He who created them from the beginning made them male and female,5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, andthe two shall become one flesh’?6 So they are no longer two, but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let no man separate.”

“Loving Each Other. This is both the husband’s (Col. 3:19) and the wife’s duty (Tit. 2:4). Love is the great reason and comfort of marriage. This love is not merely romance, but genuine and constant affection and care for each other ‘fervently with a pure heart’ (1 Pet. 1:22). Marital love cannot be based on beauty or wealth, for these are passing, and not even on piety, for that may decay. It must be based upon God’s command which never changes. The marriage vow obliges ‘for better or for worse,’ and married persons ought to consider their own spouses the best in the world for them. Marital love must be durable, lasting even after death has severed the bond (Prov. 31:12). This true-hearted love brings true content and comfort in its train. It guards against adultery and jealousy. It prevents or lessens family trouble. Without it, the marriage is like a bone out of joint. There is pain until it is restored.”

Richard Steele

*Perhaps some of what Pastor Steele said should be questioned but overall his words are worthy of acceptance.

Isaiah 33:17

GNV

17 Thine eyes shall see the King in his glory: they shall behold the land far off.

“Put the beauty of ten thousand worlds of paradises, like the Garden of Eden in one; put all trees, all flowers, all smells, all colors, all tastes, all joys, all loveliness, all sweetness in one. O what a fair and excellent thing would that be? And yet it would be less to that fair and dearest well-beloved Christ than one drop of rain to the whole seas, rivers, lakes, and foundations of ten thousand earths.”

Proverbs 31:10

GNV

poets.org

Anne Bradstreet, 1612 – 1672

🍂

All things within this fading world hath end,Adversity doth still our joys attend;No ties so strong, no friends so dear and sweet,But with death’s parting blow are sure to meet.The sentence past is most irrevocable,A common thing, yet oh, inevitable.How soon, my Dear, death may my steps attend,How soon’t may be thy lot to lose thy friend,We both are ignorant, yet love bids meThese farewell lines to recommend to thee,That when the knot’s untied that made us one,I may seem thine, who in effect am none.And if I see not half my days that’s due,What nature would, God grant to yours and you;The many faults that well you know I haveLet be interred in my oblivious grave;If any worth or virtue were in me,Let that live freshly in thy memoryAnd when thou feel’st no grief, as I no harmes,Yet love thy dead, who long lay in thine arms,And when thy loss shall be repaid with gainsLook to my little babes, my dear remains.And if thou love thyself, or loved’st me,These O protect from stepdame’s injury.And if chance to thine eyes shall bring this verse,With some sad sighs honor my absent hearse;And kiss this paper for thy dear love’s sake, Who with salt tears this last farewell did take.

“Anne Bradstreet was born Anne Dudley in 1612 in Northamptonshire, England. She married Simon Bradstreet, a graduate of Cambridge University, at the age of 16. Two years later, Bradstreet, along with her husband and parents, immigrated to America with the Winthrop Puritan group, and the family settled in Ipswich, Massachusetts. There Bradstreet and her husband raised eight children, and she became one of the first poets to write English verse in the American colonies.”